The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.”  Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.  Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.”  Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”  When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!”  Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.  Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.”  And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

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Grace to you peace, from God our Creator, and Jesus Christ, our risen Lord and Savior, the one whom we have been given the gift of following, Amen.

Jesus finds Phillip in Galilee.  And we don’t hear how he found him, just where.  And that is all.  Jesus finding Phillip though doesn’t seem to be the main character of this story from John’s Gospel.  Nathanial seems to be the focal point of this lesson.  And Phillip went and found Nathanial.  Phillip told him “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.”  “Nathanial, this is the guy who is going to save us… they person that was written about in the Pentateuch, and all over the Hebrew Scriptures.  The one that will save all of Israel from Rome.”

And what is Nathanial’s answer?  “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”  “Can anything good come of that rotten place?”  Apparently Nathanial didn’t like Nazareth too much.  Nor could a messiah come from there.

But Philip is a good friend to Nathanial, and won’t let him get away with much.  “Come and See.”  “Come and See.”  Come and see this guy, and then you will believe it for yourself.

Now, this is an Epiphany story.  This is a story about God being made manifest in the world.  It is a story about the light bulb being turned on.  How is this Epiphany and light bulb story?  Jesus is discovered and seen as the King of Israel.

“I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.  Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.”

Philip said to Nathanial, “come and see.”  Nathanial came and saw… and hence, Epiphany.

A light bulb.  That is Epiphany.  Much like opening line of our liturgy this morning… “Let the light scatter the darkness, and shine within your people here.”

I am currently reading a book called “Shadow Divers.”  It chronicles the true story of two deep water shipwreck divers.  These are scuba divers who dive shipwrecks at about 200 feet below the surface.  Diving that far below is very perilous.  It has lead to a lot of deaths.  When you are that far below, with that amount of pressure, your body suffers from too much nitrogen which ends up having effects on your mind, making you behave as if you were drunk.

Anyhow, these deep sea divers discovered a boat off the coast of New Jersey, and they didn’t know what it was.  Through a series of dives they discovered it was a German U-Boat from WWII.  They had to do a little more work, but they ended up discovering it was U-869.  They had found a knife with the captain’s name on it.  This is how they found the specific boat that it was.

Finding which exact boat it was is difficult.  It was especially difficult because 200 feet below the surface of the water is extremely dark.  Imagine it to be like night without any lights.  The only light they had was the light they brought with.  In a way, this story paints an image of the Epiphany story.

They went and saw.  They discovered.

Now, we are not so inclined to always think this way.  We are not always so inclined to think there is always a light bulb.  We are kind of in the dark.  At least, as Lutherans, this is what we maintain.  Every time we “confess that we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves” we are proclaiming ourselves as being in the dark.

Now, we are in the dark.  One of my favorite stories to tell about the dark comes from my childhood.  I know most of the dads here will be able to relate.  When I was a kid, one of my favorite toys was Legos.  I loved them.  I had a bunch of them.  They were scattered and spread all over the house.  Legos are small and they have sharp edges.  My dad couldn’t stand Legos.  See, in the dark when it was night, if he tried to navigate the house he would ultimately step on a Lego.  The sharp small object would gouge into his foot because of the lack of light.

Well, while we are indeed in the dark, there is Gospel.  There is good news.  Much like our liturgy today reads “Let he light scatter the darkness, and shine within your people here.”  The good news is the light.  Much like I explained to the children earlier – Christ being like a candle or a light bulb.  Christ is the light… the light being made manifest in the world.  With Christ, we are not in the dark.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son+, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.  Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.  He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals.  I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”  In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.  And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.  And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

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Grace to you and Peace, from God the Creator and Jesus Christ, our risen Lord and Savior.  Amen.

Our Gospel text for today begins with John the Baptist.  Crazy ol’ John the Baptist.  Out in the wilderness.  Eating bags and all decked out in Camel’s hair.  Crazy John.  But even though this guy was a little on the nutty and wild side, he was all the rage at the time.  Everyone was coming to him.    All of the people from the Judean countryside – the rural people.  And all of Jerusalem – the urban folks.  It was as though all of the people of rural Minnesota together with all of the people from the Twin Cities were going to the Mississippi river to get baptized by this wild man.

And when John baptized he talked about the one who is to come.  He prophesied.  That is, someone in the future will baptize with a much more powerful baptism.  One that will baptize with the power of the Holy Spirit.

And then comes the baptism of this powerful one.  The baptism of Jesus Christ.  The anointed one.  The messiah.  The one that John the Baptist says he is not worthy to tie the thong of his sandal.  Not worthy to tie his shoes.

And this baptism is an amazing one.  Jesus comes up out of the water and he sees the Heaven’s rip apart… and he witnesses the Holy Spirit descend upon him.  Like a dove – not necessarily a dove, but like a dove.  The spirit comes down in a peaceful, calm manner.  And then a voice.  “You are my son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased.”

Now, we have this image in our head that a dove descending would be a nice and peaceful thing.  It would be serene.  Well… I remember back to a graveside service in which there was a dove released by the family.  It was this very passage of Mark that I read when the dove was released.  I very specifically remember the rush of wind, and the noise of the wings of the dove.  It was not peaceful at all.  It was a violent rush of wind.

What the voice of God says here, “you are my son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased” is difficult to translate.  It doesn’t cross over into English well.  It might better be said “you are my son, the beloved, with you I took delight.”  One of my professors from Seminary translates it as “you are my son, I delighted in choosing you.” “You are my son, I delighted in choosing you.”

Now the Heavens ripping apart, the Holy Spirit descending violently like a dove, the voice sounding and talking to the one being baptized, I was only two weeks old when I was baptized, but I am pretty sure this didn’t happen to me.

I don’t think these things happened to me.  I was only two weeks old, but I suspect they didn’t.  At least nobody told me they did.  Furthermore, I can say that of all the baptisms I have witnessed or performed in my life, I didn’t see any clouds being torn apart.  I didn’t see any visible Holy Spirit descending like a dove.  I didn’t hear a voice come from the heavens, saying “you are my son or you are my daughter, the beloved, with you I am well pleased.”  I didn’t witness any of these things.

Now there is something very interesting about the baptism of Jesus as it is described to us in the Gospel of Mark.  Nobody else who was around heard or saw these things either.  The text is very specific about this.  Nobody who was there saw it.  John the Baptist didn’t experience these things.  Only Jesus did.

And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.  Furthermore, he is the only one who heard that voice.  “And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’”  That “you,” the “you” referring to Jesus… is singular.

What we have is a third person account of something that took place between God and Jesus.  And it would seem that nobody else, not the crowds from rural Judea or from Jerusalem, not even John the Baptist was privy to the interaction between God and Jesus.  Notice that it was Jesus that saw the heavens torn apart.  The Spirit descending upon him. They didn’t see this stuff, he did.  And that voice from Heaven, “they” didn’t hear it, “he,” Jesus heard it.  And when God addressed Jesus,  God said “you.”  God was talking to Jesus, not the crowds.

Well, now I don’t feel so bad.  No wonder for all of the baptisms I have ever seen or witnessed, no wonder I didn’t see the clouds part, and the spirit descend.  No wonder we didn’t hear God’s voice.  The people around two thousand years ago didn’t see or hear this stuff when Jesus was baptized.  It was between God and Jesus.

So, this Baptism, the baptism in which the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus what does this mean for us, here, on the day in which we celebrate the Lord’s Baptism some 2000 years ago?

See, through our own baptisms, we have been linked to Jesus’s baptism.  And not just his baptism, but also his death and his resurrection.  The second chapter of the letter to the Colossians reads, when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.  So we are linked to Christ’s baptism, his death, and his resurrection… through our own baptism.  Even the Lutheran order for Baptism reads “By the baptism of his own death and resurrection your beloved Son has set us free from the bondage of sin and death, and has opened the way to the joy and freedom of everlasting life.”

So what does this means?  If we are linked with Christ through baptism, it means that the heavens ripping apart, the Holy Spirit descending, and the voice sounding… all of this does indeed happen to us.  It’s just not as visible as we might think it would be.  The Heavens parting, the Holy Spirit, God’s voice, they are visible to us a little differently.  Not so blatant.  Not so dramatic.

The heavens are ripped apart all of the time when we baptize.  The heavens are ripped apart for us every time we come to learn and gain the knowledge that the joy and freedom of everlasting life has been opened up for us.  Just this past week in confirmation, I got to  experience the heavens being ripped apart first hand.  It was in the face of one of the confirmation students who had just learned what it meant that she had to do nothing in order to receive the free gift of grace.  I gave all of the confirmation students a quiz, and I told them they all had to receive a 100% in order to be confirmed.  Most of them were rightfully worried, until they got to the end of the quiz, were it read they would all receive 100% because that is Grace.  That is the price that has already been paid for us.  The look on her face went from confusion to happiness.  To a smile.  That was the Heavens being ripped apart, in our place, and our time.  The heavens are ripped apart every time we experience a relationship with God, and every time we experience and learn what the Grace of God actually is.

So the Holy Spirit does come down to us.  Comes down from the parted clouds, descending upon us.  Active in our families, our friends, our jobs, our lives, our congregation.  The Holy Spirit descends upon us like a dove.  Not as dramatic of a fashion as it did to Jesus, but whenever we witness a baptism – that feeling we all feel.  Or when we commune – that feeling before hand, the anticipation of receiving communion.  The feeling during and that feeling afterwards.  How we feel afterwards… that clean feeling.

And the voice of God sounds for us in the very same way.  Every time we experience the Grace of God in these ways, every time we know that God has chosen us.  Because of Christ’s baptism, death, and resurrection, every time this happens God is saying “You are my son, the beloved or you are my daughter, the beloved.  With you I am well pleased.  I took delight in you.  I delighted in choosing you.”

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit, descending to us like a dove, Amen.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.  There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.  He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.  He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.  The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.  He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.  He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.  But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.  And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

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Grace to you and Peace, on this day, the Nativity of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.

There is a notable absence in today’s Gospel reading.  Notice anything missing from the Gospel of John?  There’s no Christmas story!  Or rather, what we think of the Christmas story.

None.  There is no Bethlehem.  No Inn.  No Shepherds.  No Angel.  No Multitude of the Heavenly Host Praising God.  No wisemen bearing gifts.  No Star up in the Heavens to Guide Them.  No Animals.  No Joseph.  No Mary.  No Virgin birth.  No Manger.  Not even a baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes.  None of these.  None of these are in John’s Gospel.

So what do we have?  We have a different kind of Christmas story.  One not as romantic.  John’s Gospel was written sometime in the early part of the second century.  To a second century person of faith, God was distant.  Very far away, in the heavens, controlling our destinies.  And the word, that is logos in Greek, means Reason.  Language.  Wisdom.  Teaching.  Knowledge.  These are all things that belong to God.  These things are from God.  These things even are God.

If I were reading the beginning of John’s Gospel as a 2^nd Century Jew, to start out with, I’d be at ease with John’s Gospel. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. – Yup, that make’s sense.  All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being – yup, this makes sense. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. – Still sounds good to me.

But then there’s this little phrase in verse 14, that little verse, my 2^nd century Jewish mind was just thrown out of order.  “And the word became flesh.”  God became flesh.  No manger, but still a Christmas Story.  God isn’t so distant anymore, hanging out in the heavens.  But God is here, on Earth, with us.  God came to us.  God became flesh.

See, early second century readers of this Gospel might have had a tough time reading that last phrase.  “Word became flesh.”  God was all-powerful.  Omniscient, omnipotent.  But not in our world.  God was distant.  If we lived at this time, our minds would lead us to ask where was God when our temple in Jerusalem, our way of religious life was destroyed?  Where is God in our Roman occupation and persecution?  Where is God when we are forced to worship the Roman Emperor and treat him as a God?  Our minds might have said, “God is not with us here.”

We have a lot in common with 2^nd century Jewish Christians.  We ask these same questions.  Where is God in our pains and our sufferings?  Where was God in the Holocaust?  In WWII?  Korea? Vietnam?  Where is God in our invasion of Iraq?  Where is God when our sons and daughters and friends are serving far away in the deserts or the mountains? Where is God in a difficult housing market?  Where is God in low paying jobs?  Where is God when we don’t have health insurance?  Where is God when we’re lonely? Where is God when our families are far away from us, in other states, on Christmas?  Where is God when our family member, maybe a spouse, a sibling, a child, died and is not with us to celebrate Christmas on this day?  Where is God when our own health fails?  Where is God in our families?  In school?  In our work places.  In Tyler?  At First English?

John’s Gospel isn’t so different in our time.  It’s a tough message to hear.  That is God has come to us.  The answer to all of these questions is that the word became flesh.  God has come to us.  God is not a distant God, in the heavens, but here on Earth, with us.

There’s a song by an artist name Joan Osbourne.  Her song was called “What if God was one of us.”  The song goes “what if God was one of us, just a stranger on the bus, trying to make his way home.”

This is exactly what John means when he wrote “The word made flesh.”  God was one of us.  And God still continues to be with us, as the word made flesh.  The word made flesh is with us when we partake in communion.  When we witness a baptism.

So, there may be no Bethlehem.  No Inn.  But really, the entire world is God’s birthplace.

And there may be no Shepherds, no Angels, and no Multitudes of the Heavenly Host Praising God – but here we are, at First English Lutheran, and thousands of churches around the world. Praising God just the same.

In John’s Gospel there are no wisemen.  No star guiding them.  But really, all of us come to God, being guided by a Holy Spirit, bearing gifts.

No animals.  But there is the creation of God that surrounds us all.  Not just animals, but trees, and mountains, and rivers.  And all creation has made – buildings, and cities and art and music, and books – all of creation, which pays homage to God.

No Joseph. No Mary in John’s Gospel.  – But the love we receive from God – the love a mother or a father gives a child.

No virgin birth, No manger, No baby Jesus.  But in John’s Gospel – there is just as much.  That God came to us, to dwell among us.  To be with us. To be flesh.  To be with us, as we are.

Amen.

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered.  This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria.  All went to their own towns to be registered.  Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David.  He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child.  While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child.  And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.  In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night.  Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.  But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see– I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.  This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.”  And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”  When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.”  So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger.  When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them.  But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.  The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

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Grace to you all and Peace, from God our Creator, and from Jesus Christ, our Risen Lord, and Savior, Amen.

Some hymns have been sung.  The sanctuary is packed.  We’ve heard some wonderful music.  And we are all very excited to celebrate this birth.  We have all been here before haven’t we?  Now, I want to share with you a pastor’s perspective on Christmas Eve sermons.  There is almost nothing I can preach that wouldn’t go over well on this evening.  I could end my sermon right now, and just say “Jesus Christ was born, let’s sing Silent Night,” and we’d light some candles, and everybody on the way out of the narthex would say, “Great sermon.”  This is because that is the atmosphere.  It is in the air.  You can feel it.

See, it’s as we know how the rest of the evening is going to go.  All of the gifts are bought and wrapped.  The hams are in the oven.  Plans are all set in stone – who is coming for supper, and everything.  Everybody is dressed in some of their best clothes.  The candles are on deck, ready to be lit.  It’s as though everything is as it is supposed to be.  Wrapped up in a nice, neat package, with a bow on top.  Everything is perfect.  Wrapped up with a nice bow.

Well, you know what?  I don’t think everything is as it is supposed to be.  I don’t think everything is wrapped up in a neat package with a bow.  Life isn’t like that.  I think our lives are more like the gifts I unwrapped in front of the children.  A broken picture frame.  A broken statue.

I was talking with someone this week about Christmas from their childhood.  They told me a story about when they were a little girl.  It was Christmas morning, and she unwrapped her gift only to find in the box there was a doll with its arms ripped off.  How did this happen?  Well, her brother had meant to rip the arms off of the doll that her parents had gotten for their sister, but he got it mixed up with her gift.  So he meant to rip off the arms of the doll of their sister.    He unwrapped the gift, ripped off the arms, and wrapped it back up.  If you all want to, you can laugh.  When she shared this story with me, she assured me she had forgotten it long ago.

But how true is this about us?  Broken toys.  We like to rip the arms off of dolls.  We all have, not just this little boy.  And in turn, we have all had our arms ripped off in the process.

Or, there is another broken toy story I have for you.  My mom was about 7 years old and her Christmas gift from her parents was a little red toy piano.  She loved it.  She absolutely loved it.  She played with it for a few hours on Christmas Eve before she went to bed.  Well, her brother received as a gift a bb gun.  He loved this gift too, and he managed to use my mother’s toy piano for target practice.  He ended up destroying the plastic toy piano.

But how true is this about us?  Broken pianos.  We like to shoot pianos with bb guns.  We all have, not just my uncle.  And in turn, we have all had our pianos shot by bb’s in the process.

We are broken.  Those gifts didn’t work out as they were supposed to.  That doll was supposed to be loved on by that girl.  That piano was supposed to be played by my mother.

Well, our Christmas story, the story from Luke that we have all heard before, it really didn’t go as everyone thought it should.  A messiah was to be a grand figure.  This messiah was born in a stable.  Mary and Joseph were engaged.  I hardly think giving birth to the Son of God was in her plans.  The shepherds on that night?  I doubt that they had thought the evening would be anything but normal, encountering thousands of angels praising God and then venturing to Jerusalem to see a newborn.  Our Christmas story doesn’t come in nice and neat packages.  Our Christmas story comes to us in unexpected and broken ways.  Jesus Christ, being born to a virgin, a poor woman, born in a stable, is kind of like a broken toy.  It isn’t supposed to be that way.  And that is the Gospel.

So what about these broken toys?  Dolls with their arms ripped off?  Pianos with bb holes in them?  Yes, we ourselves are like broken toys, and we break others… but more so than this, is the story in which nothing went as it was supposed to, God rushed in and broke sin.  Those broken toys… it is just like sin.  That is the Gospel.  Now imagine sin as that piano.  God broke into our world, and tore the arms off of that sin, making it no more.  Image sin as that piano.  Shot full of holes and destroyed.

The Christmas story is a story in which nothing happened how we thought it was supposed to.  But what was supposed to happen, was for God to come down to us, first in the form of a child, to destroy sin and death.

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.  He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.  He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.  This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”  He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.”  And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.”  Then they said to him, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”  He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’” as the prophet Isaiah said.  Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.  They asked him, “Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?”  John answered them, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.”  This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing.

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I am really wondering what the priests and the Levites thought when John the Baptist said “I am not the Messiah.  I am the one who is saying “prepare the way of the Lord.”   We don’t really get what their answer was.   We do get to hear part of their answer, which was “who are you?”  And he answers “I am the one preparing for the messiah.”   My guess is they probably said a couple of more things that didn’t make it into this Gospel. The conversation didn’t end there.  It probably went like this… “Well, if you aren’t the messiah, who is going to be?  When is this messiah getting here?  Who is this person you are telling us about, that you are preparing the way for?  We want to know these things.

Or when John the Baptist told the people who had been sent by the Pharisees, “Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.”  And the Gospel doesn’t go any further on than that.  Now, something is missing there.  Surely.   If I was one of the people sent by the Pharisees, a priest, or a Levite, I am wondering… who is this person who is so great, that John isn’t prepared to tie his shoes?  There is so much more to this story, that it is missing.

If I were living during this time, and was a priest, or a Levite, or a Pharisee, I would be so mad at John.  I would be furious.  I wouldn’t drop the topic.  Who is this guy?  I want to know.  There is a lot more to the story.  When is this Lord coming here?  We sure could use him here.

Now, we are not an Advent people.  We are not.  Liturgically, we don’t really celebrate Advent.  We change the colors of the paraments, we only sing songs about the Lord coming, and unless there is communion, the Lord hasn’t come yet.  But that is all.

We don’t celebrate Advent, because we are not an Advent people.  See, Advent, literally meaning “arrival” in Latin, contains very strong notions of uncertainty.  All waiting, no matter how rigorous, now matter how long or short… contains uncertainty.  Things are not certain.  They are not set in stone.  Who is this person John, that you are preparing the way for?  Who is the messiah, if you are not it?  That’s uncertainty.

And no wonder we don’t celebrate Advent… who wants to celebrate uncertainty?  We are a people, humans, we strive for certainty.  We want the sure thing.  We take safe bets.  We don’t like risks.  We are people who crave certainty.

In most of my life, I have rarely met anyone who loves uncertainty.  I have learned in my marriage, one of the worst things I can do to Emily is say “I got a gift for you… but you can’t open it until tomorrow.”  That doesn’t go well.  I throw uncertainty all over the place if I did that… which I stopped doing about 7 years ago.  Who is this messiah John, if you are not?

I have heard from many preachers that we can compare Advent to pregnancy.  When a family or friend is pregnant, everyone is excited about the upcoming arrival of the new baby.  But underneath all of the excitement, there is some fear.  Especially on the part of the parents.  Is the baby going to be okay?  Medically, will they be safe?  Will the mother be safe?  That is why we have ultrasounds and doctor’s visits when a woman is pregnant.  Expecting parents are especially worried about whether they will make good parents.  Will they do everything right?  Excitement and fear go hand in hand with each other.   Expectant parents are a good example of the desire for certainty.  They usually name their unborn fetus.  We named ours Thor.  There was a woman pregnant at the non-profit I worked at in Chicago, and I named her unborn baby Gossamer.  Silliness aside, every so often I would ask, “how’s Gossamer doing?”  And she would respond “Gossamer is doing well.  I just went to the doctor and he is alright.”  She would answer from the part of her, that human part that we all have, that craves certainty.  We want things to be okay, and work out well.  We aren’t an Advent people.  John, if you aren’t the Messiah, who is?

We don’t like uncertainty.  “John, if you aren’t the Messiah, who is?  That is our sin, and assuredly, it is my sin too.  In an uncertain world, we practice uncertainty, we don’t celebrate it.  In a world where there is very little faith, we try to cling to our old faithless selves.

This past week, I was putting up the projector screen in preparation for the Sunday School Christmas program.   The person I was doing with is a manager who deals a lot with safety and OSHA guidelines.  And we put up the projector screen with a ladder on top of a table.  We had a good conversation about it.  We discovered that his mission which is safety is absolutely opposite of my mission, which happens to faith.  Faith and safety, or certainty, are opposed to each other.

We want to celebrate the certainty that exists.  We are a Christmas people, and an Easter people.

Now, if I were to be true to the season of Advent, If I was going to be theologically correct, I would stop the sermon right here.  I wouldn’t go on any further.  But there are two sides to every sermon.  There is the law (the uncertainty side), and there is the Gospel – this is the certainty side of things.

Amidst all of this uncertainty of Advent, there is a lot of certainty.  In the time of John the Baptist, there was certainty in his announcement.  There was the certainty of the prophecy that he was quoting.  Someone truly greater than he was coming.  There was the certainty of the coming messiah, even though Jesus was not the kind of messiah they would have expected.

I on occasion like to share a story about certainty.  When we become so certain, we become set in our ways and non-negotiable.  Christopher Columbus went around to various monarchs attempting to get funding for his voyage to Asia.  He was very firm that his ships could make the voyage, and he estimated that it was about 3000 miles to Asia – just the distance his ships could travel.  The various monarchs that he sought funding from, their learned folks said, “ummm, no.  It is a lot longer than that.  It’s more like 10,000 miles.  Your ships cannot make it.”  Both were very certain, and would not budge.  But both their certainty meant they couldn’t see the forest through the trees.  Neither party could even imagine a possible 3^rd option.  That is, a large mass of land in between Europe and Asia.

In the examples I gave of uncertainty, of saying to my wife “I have a surprise for you…” though the waiting wasn’t fun for Emily when I used to say “I have a surprise for you…” the certainty was, I had a gift for her.’Make straight the way of the Lord

Or in comparing Advent to pregnancy, the certainty is still that there is a child.  And in the unfortunate event something happens, and there isn’t, there is still a loving family that surrounds us.  Amidst uncertainty, there is certainty. “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.”

Most of all, there is the certainty of the Lord.  In the time of John the Baptist, there was certainty in his announcement.  There was the certainty of the prophecy that he was quoting.  There was the certainty of the coming messiah, even though Jesus was not the kind of messiah they would have expected.  Someone truly greater than he was coming.  John the Baptist was making straight the way of the Lord.  The way of the Lord.  This is the certainty that cancels out all of the uncertainty, all of the advent that is in our lives, not just in this part of the church year, not just in this season, not just in this part of the church year, but it wipes out all of the uncertainty in our waiting in all parts of the church year, and in all times and seasons.

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’” John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.  Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.  He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals.  I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

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Grace to you and peace, from God our creator and Jesus Christ, our risen Lord and Savior, Amen.

The verse from this Gospel reading that hangs out in my mind is the very first verse.  “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”  It kind of haunts me a bit.  “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ.”  Now this first verse in Mark functions as an introductory sentence.  It sets the tone for the whole Gospel of Mark – but it does a lot more than that.

Beginnings go hand in hand with endings.  One of the examples I like to point to is in Hawaii – the word “Aloha.”  It means both hello and goodbye.  The same word for the beginning and the end of a conversation.  This simple little Hawaiian cultural trait means something far beyond hello and goodbye.  It’s that beginnings and endings are the same thing.  One doesn’t happen without the other.

Next month is New Year’s.  When people celebrate New Years – they celebrate the beginning of a New Year.  They also celebrate the end of the old year.  The year that just passed.  Most every beginning in our life, just like New Years, has an end.  Think of all the milestones that happen in our lives.

A baby’s first breath in this world.  Birth.  When they belt out and wail and cry for the first time, it’s an end to the womb.  A beginning into life here in our world.  I vividly remember the look on my daughters face right after she was born.  It was a look of utter desperation.  That was a beginning.

A Baby’s first word.  First steps.  The beginning of toddlerhood.  An end to infancy.  An end to being utterly helpless.  The beginnings of independence.

A first kiss. A first date.  A first job.  A first car.  All beginnings.  Beginnings of being a teenager.  But all are endings.  An end to childhood.

High school graduation.  The beginning of adulthood.  An end to being someone who isn’t an adult.  In a way, an end to the teenage years.

Marriage.  The beginning of a new life with someone else.  The beginning of being joined.  An end to a life of being single.

The First child.  The beginning of being a parent.  Of being responsible for a new human being.  An end to rest, peace, and tranquility.

The First grandchild.  Retirement.  The beginning of “the golden years.”  The beginning of the later years of life.  But also an end to youth.

And finally, death.  An end to life here on this earth – as we know it.  The ending of death is usually emphasized.  But really, another beginning.  A beginning into the life after death.

In scripture.  There are these same beginnings and endings:

In Genesis, the first three words in the bible.  “In the beginning.”  It was the beginning of the Heavens and the Earth.  It was the end of a formless void.

And in the end of what we consider the books of the Bible, Revelation.  “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.”

The Gospel of John.  “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God.  And the word became flesh.”

Now in today’s Gospel text from Mark we have “The Beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”  How does this Good News begin?  With a prophecy from Isaiah.  The prophecy itself came from the time of Cyrus of Persia, shortly before the fall of Babylon.  It was prophesied among exiled Jews hoping for a beginning and an ending.  That is, the restoration of Jerusalem and an end to exile.  An end to Babylonian rule.  An end to being in a foreign land.  The beginning of a new Israel.

And its usage in Mark?  The prophecy points to John the Baptist.  John the Baptist had quite a few followers.  But then John says something.  He prepares the way for the messiah.  He gives his own prophecy:  “One who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the Thong of his sandals.  I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

What John the Baptist is pointing to is the beginning.  He’s pointing to Christ.  The Messiah.  The anointed one.  See, John the Baptists is pointing to Jesus – because Jesus is the beginning.

Jesus is the beginning of salvation.  The beginning of eternal life.  The end of death.  The beginning of our restoration.  The end of sin.  The beginning of healing.  The end of suffering.  The beginning of wholeness.  The end of broken-ness.  The beginning of forgiveness.  The end of our sin.  The beginning of freedom.  The end of our enslavement.  And if we go by the words of John the Baptist, even the beginning of how we as people are recipients of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus is the beginning of our relationship with God.  The end of our estrangement.

And on this second Sunday in Advent.  Here today.  When the second candle was lit.  We celebrate that we are at the beginning of the Church Year.  We look forward to the ministry of Jesus Christ.  Prophesied in the time of Isaiah.  Prophesied in the time of the Gospel of Mark.  Prophesied in our times as well – by many many witnesses.

The beginning is Christ.

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Since December is almost upon us, and the first Sunday of Advent has already come, I was resonating upon one of my favorite songs.  This is a song most anyone will recognize, “Christmas Time is Here” by the Vince Guaraldi Trio.  This is from the Charlie Brown Christmas Special.  It reads…

“Christmas time is here,
Happiness and cheer,
Fun for all that children call,
Their favorite time of the year.”

Christmas is indeed enjoyed by children.  This is no surprise.  Many adults fondly remember Christmases of ages past.  I have great memories of going up to my Aunt and Uncle’s every Christmas as a child.  It was a blissful chaos interacting with all of my cousins.  But what happens when we are no longer children?  Is Christmas still our favorite time of year?

I very much appreciate Charles Schulz and his work “Peanuts.”  His work, while appearing old-timey or kitschy, the comic strip was trend setting and monumental in its day.  I would even call it prophetic as it very much called people towards a different way of living.  One of the ways which Peanuts was so bold is it made kids into little adults.  These little adults at times fought, didn’t treat each other well, and struggled in very adult ways (see one of the many strips where Charlie Brown goes to see Lucy for psychiatric help.

The Charlie Brown Christmas Special is a good example of adults struggling.  The plot is centered around Charlie Brown’s struggle with Christmas.  Does this sound familiar?  Probably.  Struggling with Christmas is not something children generally do.  That falls upon the adults.  The Secret of Christmas that nobody seems to vocalize is the adult struggle with Christmas.  If we believed all of the hype, we would think Christmas is the greatest thing ever in everybody’s lives.  Since I am a pastor, I get to experience and encounter a different side of people’s lives.  People tell me how much they dread Christmas because a certain loved one is no longer with them – for those who have lost a spouse, Christmas can be very hard.  Others tell me how much difficulty they have putting on the holiday – baking, cooking, meal preparation, decorating, gifts.  It gets to be a bit much.  Still others struggle with family – family is not always a joyous thing for people.  To be forced to spend time with family can be a bit much for broken people.  The secret of Christmas that nobody talks about is that people dread Christmas just as much, if not more, than they look forward to it.

Often in the mainline church there is a battle.  I will call the battle Advent vs. Christmas.  Folks on the Advent side wave their arms in an up and down motion trying to get everyone to stop celebrating Christmas, when on the church calendar Christmas hasn’t yet arrived.   In essence, we are still awaiting the coming of Christ.  Others on the Christmas side of things maintain we don’t get to sing Christmas Hymns very often and the rest of the cultural of the world is in full Christmas mode.  I tend to think of the battle as a red herring.  I more so think of the line from Shakespeare, “The lady doth protest too much.”  I have stopped seeing the world that celebrates Christmas as beginning in December as an inability to wait.  I have started to see the world as looking forward more to Christmas being over than Christmas arriving.

The solution to all of this?  Well… for a more detailed look you could read my sermon from the First Sunday in Advent by clicking here.  But I will give a shortened version of the same message here.  In Mark’s Gospel, the disciples after coming out of the Temple say “Teacher, these are really huge buildings.”  Jesus says, “oh, these things will fall.”  He then tells the disciples to “Keep Watch and be prepared.”

Keeping watch for when God is coming in to the world isn’t dreadfully worrying about things.  No… I think keeping watch would be like a child staying up on the night before Christmas.  Waiting in anticipation and excitement.  As such I would recommend you all turn yourself into Children during Advent.  All of those struggles (missing deceased loved ones, preparation, family), shed them, and wait for God to show up.  God might show up when you miss your loved one.  God might show up in all your preparation – cooking, baking, decorating, and even shopping.  God might even show up when you get together with your family you find difficult.

“But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.  Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.  “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near.  So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates.  Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.  Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.  “But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.  Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come.  It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch.  Therefore, keep awake– for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”

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Grace to you and peace, from God our Creator, and from Jesus Christ, our risen Lord and Savior, Amen.

“Keep awake – for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”

Now, I will be honest.  I don’t think this passage made it into Mark’s Gospel as a warning to stay awake during a sermon.  Keeping awake.  Keeping vigilant.

Jesus is teaching his disciples, and he is teaching about when all of these things, the coming of the Messiah, and all of this stuff is going to happen.  And he gives this answer… you will know when it is time, just be prepared.  He gives them kind of a boy-scout message.  Be prepared.  Keep awake.

Now many like to view this as Jesus speaking about the end of the world or the coming of Christ in some apocalyptic manner.  Well, not so much.  “Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all of these things have taken place.”  Well… that generation passed away more than 1900 years ago.  So all of these things did indeed take place.  What took place?  I will get to that.  But more so, I think what Jesus was getting at was “keeping awake.”

I want you to think about the last time you were up late at night… when you should have been, or wish you were awake.  Think about it.  Now, I want you to turn to a neighbor, and tell them about this time – the time when you were up late when you wish or should have been sleeping.  Go ahead… and I will call you all back in a couple of minutes.

I can imagine what most of your answers were like.  You might have been unable to sleep.  No specific reason… just unable to get back to sleep and very frustrated.  You might have been kept up by your worry.  Something was so distracting, you were very worried and couldn’t sleep.  Or, there could have been some other reason.  Something might have been too noisy, and it woke you up.  Last week, I was up at 2:30 a.m. because I was feeding Astrid.

I am not a good one to report back about this… because I sleep very well all of the time.  Generally, adults who are awake when it is time to sleep, it is usually not out of anticipation or excitement.  It is usually out of dread.  Think about it.  The thoughts that go through your mind while you are lying down in bed, they usually aren’t very exciting are they?  They are usually thoughts of strategy, dread, worry.  So when we hear Jesus saying, “Keep awake,” guess what our natural response is?  No way!  I am awake enough!  Compare this to a child, staying awake on the night before Christmas.  That is a different kind of awake isn’t it?  That is an awake out of excitement.  We might be able to learn something from that.

When Jesus was teaching about keeping awake, he was talking about paying attention to what is in front of you that you might not quite see.  Keep awake.

I want to clue you in to the thinking of many pastors.  So that all of you might understand what actually goes in these odd creatures called pastors.  Many times pastors when they encounter something Christmas-like during Advent, they get all frustrated and wave their arms back and forth in the air, screaming “It’s still Advent.  You have to wait for Christmas!”  Well, there is something pastors are trying to get everyone to see.  There is a bit of a secret I am going to point out.  It might be a surprise to you.

Not everybody looks forward to Christmas.  Nope.  Many people, perhaps even most people dread it.  First of all, there is family.  Not everyone in the world gets along very well with their family.  The thought of being forced to be around them is sometimes very distressing.  Being around family can be very difficult.  Nor does everyone really enjoy “the busy-ness” that goes with Christmas.  There is shopping, baking, preparing, decorating.  That takes a lot of work.  Preparing a large extravagant meal isn’t always welcomed by those who are responsible for it.  Or, there are those that miss loved ones on Christmas… they had a spouse, sibling, or other loved one who is no longer with them.  They passed away, and are not around for Christmas.

Not everyone looks forward to December 25^th.  I think many people are not looking forward to Christmas.  They are looking forward to it being over.

When I was a child, I used to say something very common.  “I can’t wait.”  “I can’t wait until school is over.”  “I can’t wait until summer is here.”  “I can’t wait until Christmas.”  I can’t wait until hockey season starts.”  My dad always used to say the same thing to me.  “You know Lyle, you might want to wait until then.  There are a lot of good things that will happen between now and then.”  My dad was giving me the same message that Jesus was… “keep awake.”

So what does keeping awake look like?  Well, it is keeping a look out for when our Lord is coming.  Kind of like my dad said, “some good stuff might happen.”  That is where the Gospel is.  Amidst the busy-ness, amidst the dread of being with family, and amidst the difficulty of being without loved ones who have passed on, Christ is coming.  It is to look around, and see where and when God is coming in the midst of dread, in the midst of worry.

In the name of the Father, and of the the Son+, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

This was the sermon from Ione Christensen’s funeral on November 13th, 2011.  There is a piece of the sermon missing, as it came from a devotional that was Ione’s.  The portion of the devotional was a little exegesis about what Martin Luther thought of the Gospel Passage of Matthew.

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Psalm 23

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.  He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.  Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff– they comfort me.  You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD my whole life long.

Psalm 71:17-21

O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.  So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to all the generations to come. Your power and your righteousness, O God, reach the high heavens. You who have done great things, O God, who is like you?  You who have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again; from the depths of the earth you will bring me up again.  You will increase my honor, and comfort me once again.

Romans 8:31-39

What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us?  He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?  Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.  Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.  Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Matthew 6:25-33

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?  And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.  But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you– you of little faith?  Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’  For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.  But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

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Grace to you and peace, from God our Creator, and from Jesus Christ, our Risen Lord and Savior, Amen.

We are gathered together here today to remember Ione Christensen.  Mother, Sister, Grandmother, Friend.  Fellow worker in the kingdom for Jesus Christ.  Now we have four different pieces of scripture before us today, and I am going to paint an image of each one, using a story from Ione’s life.

The first text is Psalm 23.  We are all very familiar with the 23^rd psalm.  It is the shepherding psalm.  The Lord is my shepherd, he is going to take care of me.  Now in Ione’s life, the shepherding psalm is pretty important.  Ione was a shepherd!  It started back when both Joy and Linda when they had a couple of sheep for a 4-H project.  Joy and Linda’s 4-H project ended, but Ione kept on with raising sheep!  She ended up with a herd of about 60 sheep at any given time.  She loved to care for her sheep.  Her death rate was very low.  When a mother would abandon a lamb, she would bottle feed it until it was time for it to be weaned.  Every four hours she would bottle feed.  If she was sleeping, she would get up to care for lambs.  During the winter when it was cold, if necessary she would even create a place in the house for the sheep.  This gives a whole new meaning to the 23^rd psalm… “I shall dwell in the house of the LORD my whole life long.”  The sheep literally did dwell in Ione’s house!  That is how much she cared for them.

The 71^st Psalm is a psalm about how God cares for us in times of trouble.  “You who have done great things, O God, who is like you?  You who have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again; from the depths of the earth you will bring me up again.  You will increase my honor, and comfort me once again.”

God cared for Ione deeply during the trials she witnessed and underwent.  Health-wise she had a very difficult time.  In the 70’s she was in ill health and came near to death.  She had her adrenal glands removed… and as a result, had a very difficult time feeling emotions.  She witnessed both her daughter Connie and her husband Kenny die within two months of each other.  These are difficult things.  And her health started to fail in more recent years, as it was very apparent that she had a form of dementia.  She had seen troubles and calamities.  But like the psalmist said, “you will revive me again.”  And God did.

How did God do this?  Ione still remained connected.  She still remained connected to her family, to her friends, and to her community of faith.  One of her family members said to me “You have to include how much of a joy in her life it was to go to the yearly Lutefisk feed at Ellsbourough Lutheran Church.”  Now, keeping in line with the Psalm, I think a Lutefisk feed does sound like trouble and calamity to many.   Joking aside, God did revive her.  She had always maintained a connection to Ellsbourough, as well as to First English… and to many friends and

I now want to turn to Matthew’s Gospel.

“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.  But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you– you of little faith?”

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin.  Ione was a gardener.  She loved to grow vegetables.  She would ferociously can food.  Her flowers though were here highlight.  She loved to plan and care for flowers.  She cared deeply for them.  Her flowers neither toiled nor spun.  She made them look beautiful.

Now… it might not be apparent the images I have painted for you.  Shepherding.  God seeing us through troubles and calamities.  Flowers and birds being cared for.  These scriptures, they are not for Ione.  Ione is doing just fine.  These scriptures are for us.

Psalm 23 is for us.  Much in the way Ione cared for lambs without a mother, carrying milk out to them in the middle of the night… God cares for us.

Psalm 71 is for us.  Death hurts.  Death stings.  When we lose someone we love, it is hard.  But Psalm 71 is for us to hear.  “You who have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again; from the depths of the earth you will bring me up again.  You will increase my honor, and comfort me once again.”

Matthew’s Gospel – it is for us.  Much in the way Ione cared for her flowers, God cares for us.

Paul’s Letter to the Romans, it isn’t for Ione… it is for us.  “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Nothing can separate us from the love of God.  Not anything.  Not our own death.  Not even Ione’s.

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Oops… I do realize it has been a while since I lasted posted a sermon.  Uffda!  Sorry about that.

–Lyle

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“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.  All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.  Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’  Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?  And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’  And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’  Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’  Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

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Grace to you and Peace, from God our Creator, and from Jesus Christ our risen Lord and Savior, Amen.

Sheep and goats.  Sheep and goats.  After reading this listen, I’d imagine if everyone is asked, do you want to be a sheep or a goat, most everyone will answer “Sheep!  Sheep!”  Sheep go to Heaven.  Goats go to hell.

As a pastor, I really do grow tired of talk of life after death.  What is that you say?  What?  But you are probably all thinking, “the message of Christianity is if you believe in Jesus when you die, then you go to Heaven when you die.”  The Christian Faith is a little bigger than that. Well, there is an entire set of books in the Bible, most of which have nothing to do with this message.

“Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”  Now, I don’t want to avoid the text… this is a text about our fate.  Sheep and goats.  Somehow, we are judged.  This is a text about eternal punishment and eternal life.

Eternal punishment.  Presumably, this is Hell.  The word typically translated as Hell in the New Testament is “Gehenna.”  I like to talk about this word mainly because it destroys what we know or what we think about the concept of Hell.  Most of us have in our mind the image of Hell being something after we die, if we are not judged worthy, to be a fiery place somewhere below the ground ruled over by Satan.  We have in our head something like the painting that is on the cover of our bulletins.  Notice the people to the left of Jesus are suffering and in torment.  The people on the right of him, they seem to be doing just fine.  Some of them are even praising Jesus.  Well, I don’t eternal punishment doesn’t work that way.  It’s not very scriptural.

The word Gehenna doesn’t mean the kind of Hell we think it does.  “Gehenna” was a valley outside of Jerusalem.  There are two things about it that are noteworthy.  First… it is historically thought of as the place in Old Testament times where followers of Ball sacrificed their children by fire.  Baal was the rival God to the God of Abraham… so these folks were enemies to the Israelites.  Second, there is another theory.  Gehenna was a place outside Jerusalem which became the trash heap for the city.  It was their version of the burn pile.  It was the trash heap.  So, when Jesus said it is better for you to pluck out your eye if it causes you to sin than it is for your whole body to be thrown into Hell, this is what he was referring to.

I want to share with you a story which I think illuminates eternal punishment.  Before my mother went back to teaching she managed a group home of special needs individuals.  All of the persons in the home were of retirement age.  They were all in their 60’s or above.  There were many colorful residents with some wonderful personalities.  One of them was Albert.  Albert was about 85.  He looked and played the part of a cute little old man with glasses.  One of the things Albert did was, well, things ended up in his pocket.  If something was small or shiny, it found its way into Albert’s things.  When staff would clean his room they would end up finding many things that were not his.  Staff would end up playing little games with him… and they would leave in plain sight of him, little toys or trinkets.  They would see how long it would take for him to pocket them.  Now, when Albert took something, sometimes the staff would ask him where he found it.  Albert’s answer was always the same.  He would answer in an exclamatory voice… “I found it in the gosh darned trash can!”  The gosh darned trash can.  It might not be a surprise to you… he didn’t say “gosh darned.”  He said something else.  I just will spare you all those words and refrain from using them in the pulpit.

The gosh darned trash can.  That is eternal punishment.  Being in the trash can.  Not some fiery Hell below our feet being ruled over by Satan.  No.  Being in the gosh darned trash can.  Separated from God, and separated from other people.

So why am I tired of our faith being so focused on life after death?  It is primarily because it takes the focus off of here and now.  It puts us into a future mode of there and then.  Some day in the future when we die… instead of what Jesus was talking about… which was actually doing stuff while we are living.  Being focused on Sheep and Goats takes the focus away from what Jesus says to do…  Give the hungry food, give the thirsty something to drink, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, take care of the sick, visit the ones in prison.  It’s right there.  Plain as day.

See, when we take our eyes off of the prize, when we instantly go to that equation of Jesus = Heaven when we die, we end up becoming the goats.  All that matters is Heaven.  The devil has already tricked us.

This leads us to the Gospel message found in the text.  Remember that as Lutherans, we believe we are both saint and sinner.  As such, to put it in Matthew’s terms, we are both sheep and goat.  The goats in us are indeed condemned.  But therein is the Gospel.  We know we do not measure up.  Jesus wasn’t raised from the dead for the sheep.  Jesus was raised from the dead for us when we are goats.  It is Jesus who eliminates the effects of our sinfulness.  It is Jesus who cares for us when we are hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick, or in prison.  It is we who have first been cared for.

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.